[Hector Alejandro]

I found it interesting that Shambaugh said in 2015 that the Communist Party and Xi were in dire straits but since then Xi's presidency seems without a finite end.  In other words, his leadership is supported by the party and they perceive that China is anything but cracking up.  Yes, there are numerous domestic and overseas challenges but the power of the government and the country seems ever more consolidated. One main accomplishment seems to be that China's influence in many parts of the world has increased relative to America's influence.  Investments in the Third World, cutting edge technological development and its key role in global supply chains have been impressive and it appears that the U.S. needs to up its game in many areas if it is to maintain a somewhat dominant position in the world order.

[Hector Alejandro]

It was interesting to hear in the video that China like the U.S. has a sizable Millennial generation that will surely impact their countries' future.  Rosen's article had a survey showing mostly a large discrepancy between how the older generations see the younger ones and how the latter see themselves.  The Chinese youth see themselves as much less extreme in terms of materialistic and internationalistic values and influences.  One wild card is how their nationalism might be exploited by the government to gain support for more aggressive foreign and domestic policies.  I am curious how they feel about and are aware of the crackdown in Hong Kong.  If "performance" is how the youth judge the government, do they only care about events in Hong Kong in terms of their own welfare?  They might not see a connection between those events and their welfare.  Do the youth care about or are they aware of how the world sees their country?  Wouldn't their nationalism lead them to want China to be seen in a positive light?  However, there must be so much government propaganda to convince the Chinese public in general that the protests are illegal and that the crackdown is justified.

Regarding China's environmental initiatives, it seems apparent that the principal motivation is to mitigate the impact of air, water and soil pollution on its population.  Even if driven by self-interest, Chinese "green" outcomes like increasing their leaf, scaling up alternative evergy sources and mass-producing EVs have a large positive impact on the overall global environment.  On the other hand, because of the size of the Chinese economy and population their contribution to climate change (especially by burning coal) is concerning.  To what extent are their mitigation efforts out-pacing the increases in pollution?

[Hector Alejandro]

I googled how many internet users China has now, 854 million which is a ten-fold increase since the article on the internet bars was written.  I suspect smartphones probably account for much of this increase.  This raises the question how and to what extent the Chinese government controls the access to information of so many internet users.  Do phones come with pre-installed surveillance software or is the filtering done at the server/provider level?  I wonder if hackers and others are able to find ways around the filters.  Also, do certain people get targeted for surveillance based on their use of the internet?

The article on the suppression of Christianity is another example of "big brother" trying to control another essential aspect of people's lives, spirituality.  It is as if religious belief presents a threat to the communist status quo because people might put religious values ahead of the Chinese communist ideology resulting in conflict and subversion.  The article points out how there are more Christians than Communist Party members, which puts this perceived threat in perspective.  I agree with the article's inference at the end that it will be difficult to suppress spirituality even if the government tries to regulate which denominations are allowed and erects other barriers.  I wonder how far the government is willing to go in tampering with something so personal like spirituality.

[Hector Alejandro]

I have a particular interest in presenting the "other's" point-of-view, including the government and common person's perspective.  For example, because of official media control to what extent is the average person's views the same as the government's about Hong Kong, the Uighurs, democracy in China in general, etc.  Do most Chinese see the Hong Kong protestors as "terrorists"?  Do they even know what is happening to the Uighurs?  What is the government's and common person's concept of democracy; do they feel they have democracy or do they feel that democracy is not a priority compared to prosperity, safety and the like.

[Hector Alejandro]

Hi Everyone,

I teach World History and U.S. History and would like to incorporate some more lessons about current global affairs.  Ideally I would link past U.S.-China relations to the what is happening today in U.S. policy.

[Author]

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